Roasted cauliflower with lentils, freekeh, pomegranate seeds and tahini sauce

I absolutely love roasted cauliflower with tahini and here's another vegan dish combining these flavours. Apart from those ingredients I used puy lentils and freekeh as strong protein additions and pomegranate seeds and coriander for the freshness and vibrancy. I really liked this dish. I got inspired by the Braised cauliflower & puy lentil tabouleh recipe by Lee Watson, which is in his wonderful vegan cookbook Peace & Parsnips (p. 112-113). My dish was quite different in the end, but the inspiration was definitely there when flicking through cookbooks once again. So here comes my recipe.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower

Olive oil

½ cup puy lentils

½ cup freekeh

1 onion

1 red chilli

Vegetable stock powder

Salt Ground black pepper

Ground cumin

1 pomegranate's seeds

Fresh coriander

Tahini sauce

1 lemon's juice

3 tbsp tahini

Fresh coriander

3 tbsp water

Method

Make the tahini sauce by mixing the ingredients and set to side.

Cut the cauliflower into florets, brush with olive oil and roast in the oven.

Cook the lentils and freekeh in water until done.

Chop the onion and the chilli into half rings. Cook the onions in olive oil until browned.

Then add the chilli, lentils, freekeh and seasoning. Also add the roasted cauliflower to the mix.

Serve with the pomegranates and tahini sauce.

Have a good weekend!

Your VegHog

Blood orange and pomegranate salsa

Earlier this year I promised you more blood orange recipes, as I was so enthusiastic about the season starting. However I’ve been munching them as they are, juicing and adding to my breakfast yogurts and not making many inventive dishes with them. Now I made something slightly different, a citrusy salsa that can be enjoyed on the side of many dishes as a fresh addition. I ate mine along a couscous salad and halloumi and it was rather nice and refreshing and I really loved the colours (not a beige dish for a change!).

Ingredients

4 blood oranges

Seeds of 1 pomegranate

¼ red onion

Drizzle of olive oil

Drizzle of balsamic vinegar

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

Few fresh basil leaves

Method

Peel the blood oranges and cut them into small pieces.

De-seed the pomegranate and add the seeds to the blood orange pieces.

Chop the onion very finely and also add it to the bowl.

Add the rest of the ingredients, mix and season to taste.

All done!

Your VegHog

Pomegranate and sea buckthornberry overnight oats

Good morning! I have slept well and long and it's the weekend, I'm happy!

Recently I posted my first overnight oats attempt, the Blueberry and strawberry overnight oats and now I made another variation. I don't think that it's a craze for me yet, but these certainly make an easy and healthy vegan breakfast. This time I made a slightly smaller portion size, but this really hit the spot in the morning. 

I used these ingredients:

½ pomegranate

1 tsp sea buckthornberry powder

½ tsp sea buckthornberry sugar (or regular)

1 tbsp milled flax seed

½ cup oat flakes

1 cup almond milk

Mix the sea buckthornberry powder, sugar, milled flax seed and oat flakes with the almond milk.

Remove the pomegranate seeds and layer them into a jar with the oat mix.

Leave in the fridge overnight and enjoy as breakfast.

The theme of this month's Vegetable Palette is Blushing pinks, so I thought that pomegranate would fit that category rather nicely. I use pomegranates quite a lot in my cooking, I like to scatter them on salads, couscous dishes, pretty much on anything. I have to admit that this recipe doesn't require any cooking as the oats make themselves overnight, but I thought that it could be mentioned anyway as a nice pink food idea. Vegetable Palette is a vegetarian cooking challenge hosted by Shaheen from A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. 

 

Have a great weekend!

Your VegHog

Blood orange, courgette and mozzarella salad

Please don't think that I'm crazy when you see this dish, as the ingredient combination of fruit, vegetables and cheese might seem strange. And believe me, I got some suspicious glances for this at home, but in the end it was all eaten and more was requested... These flavours went surprisingly well together, even shallot with blood orange was very interesting and it was almost like a promise of the spring. This dish came about when I wanted a fresh starter salad and these were the ingredients I had available. I've been especially happy about the juicy blood oranges that I've been able to get at my local store at the moment, they are so lovely. I certainly think I'll make this sort of dish again!

So here's how I made it. These amounts make small starter salads for two persons.

1 courgette

6-8 cherry tomatoes

2 tbsp olive oil

1 blood orange

1 small shallot

Pomegranate seeds

Mozzarella pearls

I roasted the courgette slices and the cherry tomatoes in the oven in olive oil.

The shallot was sliced into thin half rings and the blood orange segments cut out.

Then I just combined all the ingredients on a plate and served.

What do you think? Is the combination too weird for you or are you willing to try?

Your VegHog

Acorn squash salad

I think that this salad could well be served at Christmas. It's colourful, wholesome, comforting... the clue is in the mixture of warm and cold components: the squash, lentils and halloumi will be served warm and the salad leaves and pomegranate cold. Have a look below, how easy it is to compile.

Salad ingredients

1 acorn squash

1 tbsp olive oil for roasting the squash

½ cup green lentils

1 vegetable stock cube

250 g halloumi

1 tbsp vegetable oil for frying the halloumi

200 g mixed salad leaves

1 pomegranate

Dressing ingredients

1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

4 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp thyme

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Method

Cut the acorn squash into slices, basically rings, and remove the seeds. There's no need to peel the squash. Then brush the slices with olive oil and roast at 180C for about 30 minutes until they are fully roasted. The roasting time can vary depending on the thickness of the squash slices and the oven's performance.

Rinse the lentils and cook them in water with the vegetable stock cube until soft, yet with some bite. This takes about 20-30 minutes. After that drain them.

Cut the halloumi into cubes and fry them in hot vegetable oil until they are golden brown.

Wash the salad leaves and remove the pomegranate seeds.

During the roasting and cooking, the dressing can be made. Just mix all the ingredients together.

Then assemble the salad. Make either a nice presentation on individual plates, or place the components nicely into a salad bowl and drizzle the dressing on the top.

Your VegHog

Chickpea couscous

Now it's really getting autumnal here: heavy rain, severe weather warnings, wind! Quite a few thunderstorms have also been here, which I like, but I don't associate them with autumn. For a Finn they are a summer thing. Finally I can fully enjoy walks in the park, wearing warm pullovers, drinking tea and cooking autumn dishes.

Today's dish is more a side dish, but you can eat it as a stand-alone dish as well. In that case you might want to consider adding more vegetables and spices to it. It's not really that autumnal, but there's more coming up. I combined chickpeas with harissa and couscous in a very simple dish.

Ingredients

1 cup dried chickpeas

½ cup couscous

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

250 g tomatoes

1 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp harissa

Salt

Ground black pepper

Pomegranate seeds

Method

Soak the chickpeas overnight in water. Then boil them heavily for a few minutes and then let boil more moderately for about one hour until they are cooked soft.

Chop the shallots and garlic finely and cook them in olive oil until soft. Chop the tomatoes and add them and the chickpeas to the pan.

Prepare the couscous by boiling ½ cup of water and then removing it from the heat. Add the couscous and leave under lid for 10 minutes. Then add the cooked couscous to the tomatoes and chickpeas and season with harissa, salt and pepper.

Decorate with pomegranate seeds for serving.

And that's it!

Your VegHog

Couscous salad with roasted courgette

I really enjoy a couscous salad for lunch as it's such a versatile and filling thing. Today I combined couscous with a roasted courgette and onion, and also added some pomegranate seeds. This salad could be eaten either warm or cold, however you would prefer. I always like the freshness and colour that pomegranate seeds add to any dish.

Have a look how I made my salad.

1 yellow courgette

1 red onion

2 tomatoes

1 spring onion

1 dl couscous

1 garlic stock cube

3 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

4 tbsp pomegranate seeds

Roast the roughly cubed courgette and red onion at 220C for about 15 minutes. Brush them with olive oil before the roasting.

Cook the couscous. Bring one decilitre water to boil and remove it from the heat. Add the garlic stock cube and pour in the couscous and let it swell for about 10 minutes. Let the couscous cool.

Chop the tomatoes and spring onion. These will be added fresh to the salad.

Combine the components and season with olive oil, salt and pepper and sprinkle pomegranate seeds on the top. And the salad is done!

What is your favourite couscous salad?

Your VegHog

Fruity halloumi salad

There's a heatwave in England! I certainly don't want to complain, but I still prefer staying in the shades. However my plants like this weather very much as long as I water them enough.

In this sort of heat it's good to eat lightly, just some fresh produce. Fruits are among the best choices that can be done, but as you might know, I really prefer savoury dishes to sweet ones, so I do add fruit to savoury salads like this one. I nearly always add cheese to salads as that makes them filling enough to be a stand-alone dish. This is a perfect salad to be had with a vegetarian barbecue as you can grill the halloumi at the same time.

Have you ever added fruit to your salads? Please share your taste experiences in the comment box!

Ingredients

4-6 nectarines

1 pomegranate

200 g strawberries

Mixed salad leaves

250 g halloumi cheese

Vegetable oil for grilling (not needed, if a charcoal barbecue is used)

Method

Chop the nectarines and strawberries into small cubes and remove the pomegranate seeds. Place these into a salad bowl on the top of mixed salad leaves.

Grill the halloumi cubes so that they get distinct grilling marks. Grill them either on a griddle pan or on a char-coal grill outdoors. Add the halloumi warm to the salad.

Enjoy the salad and stay cool!

Your VegHog

Yellow courgette and tomato salad

Survived Monday more or less eloquently... so before I go into hibernation, here's a quick salad post that's long overdue and has been hogged by me. I bought these round courgettes in Paris, as some of you might remember from a previous post, and already made this salad a few weeks ago. This potential post just got stuck in my folder, but here it is now with its delightful colours to refresh your Monday.

2 yellow round courgettes

2 tbsp lemon infused olive oil

3 slicing tomatoes

Pomegranate seeds

Lettuce

½ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

Cut the courgettes and the tomatoes into thin slices.

Briefly sautée the courgettes in a pan in the lemon oil.

Layer all the ingredients nicely on a plate or into a bowl and enjoy the freshness!

Have a good week!

Your VegHog

Roasted aubergine with pomegranate and buttermilk sauce

This recipe is from Yotam Ottolenghi's vegetarian cookbook Plenty (p. 110-111), of which I'm a great fan. The original recipe Aubergine with buttermilk sauce can also be found here. The taste of this dish is out of this world, and when I first made it I thought, I'd never eat anything else ever again. In the meanwhile my views might be less extreme, but still, this is one beautiful dish and I can't wait to make it again!

I didn't change much from the original, but here's my version anyway.

Ingredients

2 large aubergines

80ml olive oil

2tsp lemon thyme leaves

1 pomegranate

Sea salt

Black pepper

Ingredients for the sauce

140ml buttermilk

100g Greek yoghurt

1tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove

Salt

Method

It's easy to start with the sauce as you only need to chop the garlic and then just stir all the ingredients together. The sauce can be placed to the fridge while you are preparing the aubergines.

Cut the aubergines in half and make diamond shape cuts to the inside of them, be careful not to pierce the skin. Place them in a baking dish and brush with the olive oil until all of the oil has absorbed into the aubergines. Sprinkle some lemon thyme, salt and pepper on the top and roast at 200C for about 35-40 minutes. Let them cool after the roasting.

Spread the sauce on the aubergines and sprinkle the pomegranate seeds on for serving. You can also sprinkle some additional olive oil and lemon thyme on the top. Then enjoy this beautiful dish!

Your VegHog

Marinated tofu and pomegranate salad

Here is just a quick salad idea, so without much ado: I baked tofu in the oven and marinated it with harissa, served it warm with some nice fresh salad ingredients, and then this creation was ready to be shared. I really like the complimenting flavours of harissa and pomegranate together, and fruit is always a good idea on a salad.

Ingredients:

400g tofu

4 spring onions

100g pea shoots and baby leaf salad

1 pomegranate

Vegetable oil

Marinade:

4tsp harissa (smoky, less hot variety)

2tsp honey

2tsp olive oil

Dice the tofu into medium sized cubes (about 1,5cm sides; they will shrink a bit in the oven) and brush them with little vegetable oil. Roast in the oven at 175C for about one hour until the cubes start to get a crispy surface, turn them roughly every 15 minutes.

Make the marinade by mixing harissa, honey and olive oil together, and brush the tofu cubes all over with it. Roast them for further 20 minutes at 150C.

In the meanwhile prepare the other ingredients: chop the spring onions, wash the salad and remove the pomegranate seeds and place them on a plate.

When the tofu is done, sprinkle it warm on the salad and serve. You can also try substituting the tofu with halloumi to get some variation. Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pomegranate and coquina squash salad

I always crave for something fresh at Christmas to accompany all these heavy winter vegetables and roasts. It's a good idea to make several different fresh salads as well. This colourful salad has sweet pomegranate in it and honey-roasted coquina squash pieces combined with fresh salad leaves.

1 pomegranate

1 coquina squash

100g ruby salad

100g baby leaf salad

1tsp honey

3tbsp olive oil

2tbsp balsamic vinegar

Salt

Pepper

Peel the squash and cut it into small cubes. Place the cubes in an oven dish and brush them with olive oil. Roast them at 200C for about 30 minutes. 

Then brush them with honey and roast them for further 10 minutes.

Split the pomegranate and remove the seeds and add them to the squash. Mix these ingredients with the salad leaves.

Prepare a simple vinaigrette of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and drizzle it on the top.

Enjoy as a Christmas side salad.

Your VegHog